Hubby is out with his friends, “out” meaning hanging at our friends’ house (sans wives, of course) to watch a new 3-D TV.  The boys get together at night, without spouses or children, and the girls get together during the day, without husbands but WITH children.  And when the boys go out at night without the kids, we still have the kids.  I’m not complaining because the husbands are good about letting us girls go out together at night, but we never do.  The last time was maybe February or March?  So basically never.  Again, I’m not stomping my foot and pouting “That’s not fair,” just saying maybe us girls should change it up sometimes. [edit: Of course, they are at Mr. Y's house while his kids are upstairs, but I'm betting MRS. Y is the one taking care of the kiddos as they wake up and need a drink of water.]

So I made chocolate mug cake, topped it with ice cream and walnuts, and watched “Harold and Maude.”  Now, that movie has been on our Netflix queue for quite a while, probably even before I went out with my girlfriends sans children (Which, now that I think about it, has been well over a year.  One of us keeps having a nursing baby that we have to bring along.), but I’ve never watched it.  I’ve always been too worried about the creepy factor.  Just how far would they push the romance of a young (college age?) boy and a 79-year-old woman?  There were some creepy parts, but I think for the most part it was a sweet movie.  In case you ever decide to watch it, let me know, and I’ll warn you about the parts you should skip through.

Now I’m googling pictures of Alexa Chung because I want to copy her wavy messy hair.  If you look at my most-used board on Pinterest you’ll see lots and lots of bobs, as in haircuts.  Bob haircuts.  And they all look pretty much the same.  I just want my haircut to not look like the hair of a 30-year-old mom who gave up, you know?  So I’ve been staring at people’s hair and trying to decide how to make mine match theirs.  Once, after our weekly date at the bakery (with kids, of course), I came home and cut swoopy bangs to look like Chrissa’s.  But my hair still doesn’t look like hers.  Hers is shinier and try as I might, I cannot get my double-processed, bleached hair to shine like hers.  I’d like to do the blunt bangs of Ellen Barkin or Scarlett Johansson or Katie Holmes, but that’s scary.  Jayme cut them on her long hair and I can’t wait to see them.  Anyway, Alexa Chung has blunt bangs, so I’ve been looking at the pictures that some people creepier than me have put on their blogs that are totally devoted to her.

Every time I hear Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” I think of Estella from Great Expectations and I’m sad for her.  Then I want to read more Dickens.  Have you guys read Great Expectations yet?  Do.  It is such a wonderful book.  If you’re not laughing out loud in the first chapter then put it down, get yourself a cup of coffee and a clear head, then sit down and try it again.  If you’re still not laughing out loud in the first chapter then you’re reading it wrong.  That’s okay, because I did the first time, too.  But Dickens is so incredible at making you laugh while feeling the fear of a six-year-old boy all at once.  Then you grow up with Pip and love him and you love Joe and that whole world and then, 496 pages later it’s suddenly finished and you have to find another book that will be as satisfying to spend your time on.  Probably I should try Oliver Twist or A Christmas Carol but I fear it’s too late in the Christmas season for the latter and I don’t want to be sad with the previous.

Speaking of Joe Gargery, let’s name some of our favorite characters from literature.  Off the top of my head: Joe Gargery from Great Expectations, John Jarndyce from Bleak House (I’ve never read the book but did see the BBC Miniseries with the adorable Carey Mulligan, and I love John Jarndyce)(also, Bleak House is another Dickens novel, so of course I’d love it if I read it), and John Ames from Gilead.  Now, my favorites are stacked with characters from books I’ve just read, but I think it goes along with the fact that I refuse to read anything that’s not encouraging.  I want to have the love and forgiveness these characters have.  Also, I love the narrator in Sonny’s Blues.  Not that he’s as altruistic as the others, but that short story has been one of my favorites since I discovered short stories, so I should probably name him as a favorite character in literature.

Who is your favorite person from the Bible?  You are not allowed to say Jesus.  Mine is Peter because that man was a mess.  He was impulsive and lost his faith as quickly as he got it, spoke out of turn and was heartily reprimanded but still stayed close to Jesus, denied his Lord three times during his precious friend’s greatest need, and yet Jesus built His church upon him.  Through all his weakness he loved Jesus.  Really, really, really loved Him.  I can get behind that.  Paul is too sure of himself; that is nothing like me.  I think if we hung out he would look at me sideways and call me out on my stuff.  Daniel would be interesting.  He was a smarty and I admire his resolve.

[Another edit, for you guys who are up at 11:08 on a Saturday night and reading my blog as quickly as it posts: that guy from Cracked appears to have been totally right about the next Batman.  Behold.]

Okay, I’m going to wrap it up now.  I’m going to re-read Sonny’s Blues and continue listening to the “erin’s faves” playlist on our iTunes.  You guys have a good night.

I finished the second of a few books that Hayley loaned me six months ago and I have learned it is good to borrow books from my sister.  She has great taste.

I’d like to give a review of Gilead but I can’t; I would fumble around and take away from the sublime happiness that it is. All I can say is this: it is the prettiest novel I have ever read.  It is full of beautiful prose and grace and love and it draws you into the quietly marvelous life of an old Christian reverend.  You should read it and then sit in its glow.  If the book were not my sister’s I would loan it to you myself and then make you sit down with me over a cup of coffee to discuss it.

I will, however, leave you with some of its prose.  Really I could have quoted from nearly any page, but these two stood out to me:

One of the [previously written by the protagonist] sermons is on forgiveness.  It is dated June 1947.  I don’t know what the occasion was.  I might have been thinking of the Marshall Plan, I suppose.  I don’t find much in it to regret.  It interprets “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” in light of the Law of Moses on that subject.  That is, the forgiveness of literal debt and the freeing of slaves every seventh year, and then the great restoration of the people to their land, and to themselves if they were in bondage, every fiftieth year.  And it makes the point that, in Scripture, the one sufficient reason for the forgiveness of debt is simply the existence of debt.  And it goes on to compare this to divine grace, and to the Prodigal Son and his restoration to his place in his father’s house, though he neither asks to be restored as son nor even repents of the grief he has caused his father.

I believe it concludes quite effectively.  It says Jesus puts His hearer in the role of the father, of the one who forgives.  Because if we are, so to speak, the debtor (and of course we are that, too), that suggests no graciousness in us.  And grace is the great gift.  So to be forgiven is only half the gift.  The other half is that we also can forgive, restore, and liberate, and therefore we can feel the will of God enacted through us, which is the great restoration of ourselves to ourselves.

And also:

I fell to thinking about the passage in the Institutes where it says the image of the Lord in anyone is much more than reason enough to love him, and that the Lord stands waiting to take our enemies’ sins upon Himself.  So it is a rejection of the reality of grace to hold our enemy at fault.  Those things can only be true.  It seems to me people tend to forget that we are to love our enemies, not to satisfy some standard of righteousness, but because God their Father loves them.

I once had a boss named Gary who told me he didn’t think girls liked music as much as boys liked it.  His girlfriend Ana, for example, wouldn’t seek out CDs to buy but might pick one up if she was already in a store with him.  He, on the other hand, knew everything about the history of Bob Dylan and tried to engage my husband in thoughtful discussions about him, as Dylan was Hubby’s favorite artist for a good many years.

I thought back to sitting in front of my CD player in eighth grade and determinedly learning the lyrics to Blind Melon’s Change and then lying on my bed in a haze of loneliness and what am i doing with myself discussions in my head my freshman year of college as Tori Amos played on repeat.  I sought out music but didn’t know how to tactfully say, “Your generalization does not apply to me,” because no matter how innocuous a reply, I am really good at sounding confrontational.  So I just tilted my head, raised my eyebrows and said, “Huh.”

Maybe six months ago I was listening to Mumford and Sons for the umpteenth time as Daphne and I ran errands while the big kids were in school.  They are probably my favorite band because they are the perfect union of Coldplay and bluegrass and what music could possibly be more beautiful?  Six months ago every song of theirs was new and perfect and I listened to them A LOT a lot, especially when Hubby was not around.  My poor husband forced a smile every time I excitedly said, “Listen to this one!”  Because Hubby and I are not often of one mind as we choose music.

I don’t know how many times I’d listened to it, but all the sudden I realized one of Mumford and Sons’ songs was about a person’s going back to Jesus, a man’s looking at Jesus and saying, “You better walk with me through this if I’m going to come back to You.”  And then Jesus walking with him.

After I realized it I blared that music as sweet Daphne slept in the back seat, then drove around Wichita and Augusta just so I could listen to it over and over.

Praise music has its place in my life but songs like this are what really speak to me.  The purity of admitting that living life as a Christian is difficult and dirty and every day I must again make the decision that yes, I will follow Him.

So I’m sharing the song with you, knowing full well that it might not speak to your soul as it does to mine, but I hope that maybe you’ll appreciate its beauty a little bit, and hopefully you’ll see a little bit of Jesus’ desire to love you and walk with you, no matter how many times you come back to Him.

Roll Away Your Stone

by Mumford and Sons

(Lyrics copies from here.)

(I placed the links.)

(Scroll down to the bottom so you can hear the song while reading the lyrics.)

Roll away your stone, I’ll roll away mine
Together we can see what we will find
Don’t leave me alone at this time,
For I’m afraid of what I will discover inside

You told me that I would find a hole,
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal,
And all the while my character it steals

Darkness is a harsh term don’t you think?
And yet it dominates the things I see

It seems that all my bridges have been burned,
But, you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works
It’s not the long walk home
that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive with the restart

Darkness is a harsh term don’t you think?
And yet it dominates the things I see
Darkness is a harsh term don’t you think?
And yet it dominates the things I see
Darkness is a harsh term don’t you think?
And yet it dominates the things I see

Stars hide your fires,
And these here are my desires
And I will give them up to you this time around
And so, I’ll be found
with my stake stuck in this ground
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul
hide your fires,
these here are my desires
And I will give them up to you this time around
And so, I’ll be found
with my stake stuck in this ground
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul

But you, you’ve gone too far this time
You have neither reason nor rhyme
With which to take this soul that is so rightfully mine

You are kind, Lord, so good and merciful.

You protect ordinary people, and when I was helpless, You saved me

and treated me so kindly that I don’t need to worry anymore.

Psalm 116:5-7

A few weeks ago I read again the story of the sick woman who was healed from a 12-year disease after merely touching the hem of Jesus’ outer garment (found here and here).  I’d always understood the lesson of that encounter is that it takes very little for Jesus to heal a person. Which is true.

But as I re-read it a few weeks ago for a ladies’ retreat at my church, I thought more about the woman.  That woman was TENACIOUS.  She fought to get through a crowd of people so that she might be healed.  Then she reached out for him and “immediately… she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”

I want that.  I want her drive to push toward Jesus so that I will be made perfect in Him.  A crowd of people pushed against Him that day and yet it was only her touch that used His power.  I do not want to be a simple bystander in the crowd around Him, casually listening to His words and yet taking none of His power for my own, and I certainly don’t want to be part of the crowd that wound up in the throng without realizing that God Himself was in their midst.

I want to fight to be near Him, I want to fight for the opportunity to use His power as I go out in this world, and then I want share His joy with others.  It’s too good to keep to myself.

In today’s column I celebrate my son.

My sweet little man when he was two days old:

Beautiful little baby.

And my handsome boy at age seven:

He is a joy.

Two weeks ago I completed my first-ever 5k.  Hubby and I are currently on the lookout for more races to run.

The poem that I referenced in my column:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

–e.e. cummings

Back when we lived in Tulsa the kids and I never played outside at our house.  Hubby and I bought a house in a pre-gentrified neighborhood, which means that we bought a cute house for very little money in a sketchy neighborhood.  I never felt unsafe there, but strange people did walk by at all times of the day, so if Gideon and Mia and I wanted some playtime we had to load up in the car and drive to the park.

Hubby and I knew we wouldn’t stay there forever and then the day came when it was time to move.  Nothing monumental happened, but two kids with two parents working opposite shifts so that the kids didn’t have to be in daycare got to be too much.  So Hubby found a good job up here and we moved so that I could stay home.  We loved Tulsa but we love it here, too.

I love our neighborhood.  I love that the kids and I can simply walk out the door to take walks and see pretty houses and play in the leaves.  I love the big trees that change colors in the fall and drop so many leaves that they never all get picked up.  And I love the sidewalks.  Yesterday morning Daphne and I took a 45-minute walk that only got us around two blocks.  But we could meander in and out of people’s yards and look at broken walnuts on the ground and never be in danger of passing cars.

And I love my new phone.  After all my wondering about whether it was a good idea I finally decided it was.  The day after we were allowed to upgrade our phones Hubby bought me a pretty little smartphone.  The best part about it is the camera.  Three years ago my mom took me to Best Buy for an early Christmas present.  I picked out a really nice point-and-shoot camera that got good reviews but was TERRIBLE in real life.  We changed the settings, changed them back, held the button halfway down in anticipation of a good shot and that thing took terrible pictures for three years before it finally broke.  Now I aim my phone’s camera at my kids and voila!  A not-blurry picture taken right when I want it.

Here are pictures from our walk yesterday morning:

The beginning:

Sunshine and the perfect temperature and a precious baby.

On her balance beam:

How do babies come up with this stuff? What made her try to balance on that thin piece of curb? Babies are fascinating.

Investigating the local vegetation:

Dried seeds can be so interesting.

Hamming it up in the street so that I’ll laugh:

Back...

...and forth...

...and back again.

And then watching her shadow wave exactly as she does:

Cool cool cool trick!

As I watched Daphne’s brain process what was happening with her shadow and giggle in delight, I was reminded anew how happy I am.  When I got pregnant with her Hubby and I were surprised.  We left open the possibility of more kids, but then it was going to happen and our brains shut down and we could only say “Whoa…”  But this is perfect.  Someday I’ll be in the workforce again but right now I want nothing more than to be with my kids at breakfast and pick them up from school and fill my days with watching Daphne discover the mundane things of leaves and shadows.  I am so blessed.

A year or two ago my friend Lisa was telling me about a daily devotional of hers that she loved called Jesus Calling.  “I love that book, too!” I burst in. “We read that to our kids at night!”

She looked at me with a strange expression on her face, probably wondering how my then preschoolers could understand that book, and I remember wondering in return why she was reading a kids’ devotional book.

Much later, like probably six to nine months later, I realized there is a Jesus Calling daily devotional and a Jesus Calling: 365 Devotions for Kids.  Makes much more sense now.

Even though it’s written for kids (probably early teens), I adore that daily devotional book.  So much, in fact, that I’m going to quote part of September 27′s entry.  It’s happy, and we all need a bit of happy in our day.

“And when you are overwhelmed, I am the One who is running before you, clearing the path of things you just can’t face today.”

“The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.  He will drive out your enemy before you, saying ‘Destroy him!’ ” Deuteronomy 33:27

I love the picture she paints of the Lord seeing what is in front of us and running ahead so that those troubles don’t even touch us. He is a good Lord.

When we moved to Augusta four years ago I never imagined I’d be in the place I am.  I remember thinking I’d look for a MOPS group and I prayed God would lead me to close and valuable friendships with other women who loved Him.  Quickly He set both of those in motion.  But soon after He nudged me, saying, “I’ve given you what you asked for.  Now do for Me what I need.”

I didn’t picture myself as a blogger.  I certainly never imagined myself as a newspaper columnist.  In all my life, in all the imaginings of my someday career–lawyer, teacher, child psychologist–columnist never floated across my radar.

And yet here I am.  A blogger with a pretty good readership, a columnist whose piece gets read by a thousand people every week.

Four years ago I did not imagine this.

My column that comes out on Saturday is out there.  Kent, the publisher of the Gazette, told me all those moons ago that I could write about anything I chose.  And so this week I chose to write about God and my very human thoughts of Him.

My fear is always that I will come across preachy and condescending.  I’m always re-reading and re-wording and trying so very hard to not push others away because of an unintended patronizing attitude on my part.  But I want others to know God.  I want them to know His saving grace, the love that gets me through my days.

Beth Moore once talked in one of her studies about how sometimes she wants to pull the car over and grab a stranger on the sidewalk.  “Do you know Jesus?  Do you have any idea how much He loves you and desires to be a part of your life?”

That’s how I feel.  I just want to grab people by the arms and shake them until they see the Lord as I do: an awesome, powerful Creator who is madly in love with us.

Last week in my column I wrote about my loneliness.  This week I wrote about my fascination with the Creator who named all the stars in the sky and yet still finds me interesting enough to desire a relationship with me.

It is too much.  He is too much.  His glory is more than I can fathom, His love more than I can bear.  I do not deserve it.

I think one of the verses of my life will always be, “Who am I, and what is my family, that You have brought me this far?“